The unhappy man who was now lord of the empire had been for some ten years a hypocrite in his Christian profession. No sooner was he proclaimed emperor, than he openly professed himself a restorer of the old religion. Then it was that he "washed off the laver" of baptism by a hideous self-immersion in bull's blood,[65] and sought to cleanse his hands from the touch of the bloodless Sacrifice by holding in them the entrails of victims. He set up an image of Fortune in the great church, and while he was sacrificing there, Maris, bishop of Chalcedon, now a blind old man, was led up to him at his own request, and rebuked his impiety. "Will thy Galilæan God cure thy blindness?" asked Julian. "I thank my God," said Maris, "for the blindness which saves me from seeing the face of an apostate." [65] The Rite of Taurobolia, Prudent. Peristreph. 10. The last of Julian's attacks upon Christianity was his attempt to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. He did indeed wish to aid the Jews in their desire of renewing the Levitical sacrifices, and to secure their attachment to his government in spite of its paganism; but his main object was to confound the Gospel by raising up the fabric which it had expressly doomed, and thus reviving the system of which that fabric had been the symbol and centre. The rapturous hopes of the Jews were expressed in the scene which followed the imperial mandate, when silver spades and mattocks were employed, and earth was carried away from the excavations in the rich dresses of delicate women. The faith of the Christians was expressed by Cyril's denunciations of the predestined failure. Full of confidence he proclaimed that the enterprise, so far from succeeding, would prove to all men the impossibility of resisting the decree of God. Great must have been his faith, for every appearance was against him. The heathen historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, tells us what ensued. After all possible assistance had been given by the authorities, "fearful balls of fire breaking out near the foundations with repeated attacks, scorched the workmen several times, and rendered the place inaccessible; and in this way, after obstinate repulses by the fiery element, the undertaking was brought to a stand." Various details are added by Christian writers, as of an earthquake, a whirlwind, fire from heaven, a luminous cross in the air, and marks of crosses on the garments of the Jews. It is possible that in these particulars there is an element of exaggeration, and that in the fiery eruption itself, natural agencies were employed. But that those agencies should manifest themselves at that particular crisis will appear accidental, as men speak, to those only who do not estimate the exceeding awfulness of the occasion,--the unparalleled historical position of Julian, the mystery of iniquity in his general policy, and the specially anti-Christian malignity of this attempt at a confutation of Christ's words.